Category Posts by Others

Feb 28 2016

The Anti-American President


Post by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Barack Obama admits being a Muslim. This may be the only significant truth he has uttered since becoming President of the United States. Ponder this Internet link and hear Obama speak for himself on this issue:

Otherwise, most extraordinary about his official utterances is their brazen and surreal mendacity. Obama’s prevarication also betrays his utter ignorance of, and/or contempt for, the intelligence of ordinary, let alone college-educated, Americans. Ponder this.

Perhaps Obama’s most authentic character trait is taqiyya, the art of dissembling. Taqiyya leads its Muslim practitioners to believe their own lies.

Most disturbing is that this charlatan was elected twice to the highest office of American Government. What an awful commentary on the intelligence of the American people! But this justifies Obama’s blatant contempt for their intelligence. Moreover, if the American people are dull-witted, surely this is a reflection on the benighted character of their educators, hence, on the dismal level of American colleges and universities.

Can it be that higher education in America dulls the minds of most Americans, that it renders them incapable of recognizing a fool and a fraud? Can it be that academia in America has stultified the good sense of countless students, hence of those who eventually become America’s “Intelligentsia,” the nation’s opinion makers, diplomats, and decision makers?

To cut to the chase, can it be that many university graduates have been corrupted by the academic doctrine of multicultural moral relativism, a doctrine that stunts their ability to discriminate between right and wrong, true and false, in consequence of which they cannot recognize the plain fact that whereas Islam’s world outlook degrades the individual, America’s world view exalts the individual?

Can it be that such has been the erosion of their moral convictions that countless Americans can no longer believe with confidence that the revolutionary ideas of the American Declaration of Independence are ethically more discriminating and far more rational than the violent ideas emphasized by the Qur’an, and therefore, that the democratic and American way of life, whatever its shortcomings, is intrinsically superior to the autocratic way of life that has enthralled Islam down through the centuries, a way of life that has fostered not Nobel Prize winners but suicide bombers?

This candid and “politically incorrect” comparison may explain the mental miasma and dangerous direction of America’s President: (1) his genuflecting to King Abdullah, a Sunni despot; (2) his appeasement of Shiite Iran, another Islamic despotism; (3) his appointment of six members of the Muslim Brotherhood to his Administration, including the Department of Homeland Security; (4) his prohibiting members of his Administration from making statements associating Muslims with terrorism; (5) his appointment of Samantha Power to his cabinet, the lady who advocated a military invasion of Israel to create a Palestinian state.

Obama has been waging a war against Israel. This was made crystal clear by Victor Sharpe, author of Politicide: The Attempted Murder of the Jewish State. In the American Thinker dated August 20, 2014, and which I will slightly paraphrase, Sharpe writes:

Whereas Israel’s request for a shipment of hellfire missiles and mortars to replace those expended during the defensive struggle against Hamas has been denied, the requests of Israel’s Muslim and Arab enemies are speedily and unquestionably granted by Obama and the State Department.

Stopping weapons shipments to a close ally in a time of war is deliberate sabotage by the incumbent in the White House.

President Obama recently signed a massive armaments agreement with the government of Qatar. The weapons include Apache helicopters, advanced Patriot surface-to-air missiles (SAM), and Javelin handheld ground-to-air defense systems. Qatar is a strong ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and finances Hamas.

It has thus come to pass, at this most critical juncture of history, that the American people, corrupted by their institutions of higher education, have elected an anti-American as their President. They have thus fulfilled the malediction of this President’s mentor: the “God-damn America” Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Nor is this all.

To damn America is to attack her primary foundational principles. These are embodied in American Declaration of Independence, in the Declaration’s pivotal concept, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” To learned men of the 18th century, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” encapsulate the Seven Noahide Laws of Morality enshrined in the Book of Genesis. Mr. Obama’s malicious mentor therefore rejected the Judeo-Christian foundation on which America stands, and without which she will fall.

Therefore, to dissolve Pastor Wright’s malediction now personified in Barack Obama, the American people must revive what Abraham Lincoln called their “ancient faith,” which has been eroded by 100 years of “higher” education. Indeed, as an American-born citizen of Israel I will go even further. To be worthy Lincoln’s having exalted Americans as the “almost chosen” people, I urge Americans to regard the rebirth of Israel – especially the restoration of the Hebrew language that was taught in America’s colonial colleges – as the key to America’s redemption.

Feb 21 2016

Making America “Great” Again


Post by Paul Eidelberg

Donald Trump’s political leadership in the presidential race may be attributed to what Lou Harris calls “orneriness,” which he attributes to the American character in his book The Next American Civil War.

Harris foresees a revolution of the American middle class against the “Establishment,” or what men like Ted Cruz terms the “Washington Cartel.” This cartel is led by the intellectual elite, a product of American universities like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

Just as this elite scorned Trump in the New Hampshire primary, which he won because of the more decisive votes of the less educated, this political bias of academia may propel Trump to the White House. None of his rivals exhibit “orneriness.” They are more or less milquetoast politicians.

Although Trump lacks class, his orneriness endears him to the unwashed populists. This reminds me of Truman’s victory over New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 election.

Dewey appeared as a stuffed-shirt “establishment” man. Of course, unlike the egotistical Donald Trump, Truman was a plain or humble person from Independence Missouri, in contrast to the big-time New York attorney.

Also, today’s voters are more susceptible to showmanship, which Trump displays far more than his “nebbish” rivals – to use a Yiddish word for a milk-and-toast politician. Americans want to be entertained, especially today when America, under Obama, displays anything but manliness, let alone aggressiveness, vis-à-vis Islamic contempt for America.

Trump capitalizes on this Islamic arrogance, its insult to American greatness. Hence he doesn’t need to discuss issues, which, after all, are hardly discussed by his rivals.

And so, this 2016 presidential campaign is a “made-in-Hollywood” affair. Personality reigns supreme, larded with  democratic vulgarity.

The great 19th century French novelist, Gustav Flaubert, foresaw that this vulgarity would hold center stage in this era of triumphant democracy, which, he said, would make “any man of taste want to vomit”!

No one should be surprised, therefore, if Trump wins the presidency. How ironic! Democracy, or the rule of the many, of those who have to work for a living, elects a vulgar plutocrat to make America great again”!

Feb 18 2016

Whither Are We Going?


Post By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Mankind is tottering on an abyss. Violence punctuates daily life in a world increasingly portrayed as meaningless. We are strangers, not only to each other but to ourselves. The “crisis of identity” has become a cliché. Familial and national ties have been eroded; we are homeless cosmopolitans. Indeed, no less than the President of the United States boasts of being a “cosmopolitan”! He emulates the Swedes, who replaced their heritage with multiculturalism.

Creación_de_Adán_(Miguel_Ángel)

Not knowing who or what we are, we lack the hauteur and confidence of cosmopolitans of the past. They believed in Universal Man, in man sub specie aeternitatis; we believe in nothing.  Our humanism is empty; we can’t even take our own humanity seriously. Nihilism has rendered the distinction between man and beast problematic. What, indeed, is noble about man that anyone should boast of being a “humanist”?

When man becomes problematic, enter civilizational decay, but also the possibility of renewal. Such was the case some twenty-four hundred years ago when Greek sophists like Protagoras exulted in teaching youth that “man is the measure of all things.” This unheard of and skeptical doctrine (the dogma of today’s universities), signifies that all ideas concerning the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are human creations, relative to time and place. Socrates saw that this secularism and relativism would eventually destroy the Olympian gods and was even then undermining public morality in Athens. The sophists, the Greek counterparts of today’s “value-free” social scientists, were broadcasting the death of Zeus, the pagan god of justice. Without Zeus, what would hold society together?  Without the traditional understanding of right and wrong, men would devour each other like animals.

Enter Socrates. His task, completed by Plato and Aristotle, was to substitute a restrained skepticism for the sophists’ unrestrained skepticism, lest men revert to beasts. The world-historical function of these Athenians was to construct a philosophy of man and a world view that would replace the no longer credible mythology of the Homeric cosmos. Accordingly, and as dramatized in The Republic (when the god-fearing Cephalus leaves the dialogue), philosophy replaces religion and the philosopher replaces Zeus. No longer are the gods to rule mankind, but reason – unaided human reason – would henceforth determine how man should live.

Of course, neither Plato nor Aristotle was so naive as to expect the generality of mankind to defer to the rule of philosophers. Apart from other considerations, philosophers are not only as quarrelsome as the offspring of Zeus and Hera, but, unlike the Olympians, they are mortal: here today, gone tomorrow. Something impersonal as well as immutable and eternal was therefore needed to command the obedience of man. What else could this be but Nature – nature divested of Homeric deities. Neither the gods nor man but all-encompassing Nature was to be the measure of all things.  And this Nature, far from being arbitrary and mysterious, was fully accessible to the human mind.

The magnitude of Aristotle’s program has not been surpassed in the history of philosophy. He merely set out to comprehend the totality of existence, to reduce heaven and earth to an organized system of theoretical, practical, and productive sciences. To borrow the terminology of Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik in Halakhic Man’ Aristotle would tolerate no randomness or particularity, no mystery to obscure the fleeting events of existence. Everything had to be fixed, clear, necessary, ordered. Nothing was beyond the grasp of the human mind because Nature, or the Cosmos, was an intelligent and therefore intelligible whole.

With Greek philosophy a new type of man appeared in the forefront of world history, Cognitive Man. Cognitive Man is a secularist who deifies the intellect. He must therefore be distinguished from his secular rivals, Volitional Man and Sensual Man. Whereas Cognitive Man seeks to understand the world, Volitional Man wishes to conquer and change it, while Sensual Man simply wants to enjoy it. Only with the ascendancy of Volitional Man, personified by Machiavelli, did secularism come into its own as the regnant force of history.

Of course, Machiavelli had collaborators: Hobbes, the father of modern psychology: “The thoughts are to the desires as scouts and spies to range abroad and find the way to the things desired”; Hume: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” The influence of these two harbingers of Sensual Man explains why we are not used to thinking of Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy as secular.

Plato and Aristotle pay nothing more than lip service to the divine. True, the refinement of their writings conveys great piety. What gives the lie to this impression is that neither philosopher regarded piety as a virtue. We must also bear in mind their caution and civic-mindedness. Socrates, the master of irony, was given the hemlock for atheism. And what with the widespread corruption in Athens resulting from affluence, a disastrous war, and the unabashed atheism of so many intellectuals, it would have been reckless for these aristocrats of the mind to have joined the scoffers of a religion which, whatever its shortcomings, did provide some salutary restraints on the passions of men.

There are refined and vulgar forms of secularism. Plato and Aristotle’s is couched in pious language not only for political and pedagogical reasons, but because, in their species of humanism, the philosopher is virtually divine. By no means is the philosopher to be confused with the academic professor of philosophy. No one has portrayed the difference more powerfully than Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil (Part VI, “We Scholars).” For these giants of the intellect, Cognitive Man is the passionate lover of wisdom, where wisdom is nothing less than knowledge of the organizing principles of the universe.

But what is most distinctive of Cognitive Man, whether philosopher or scientist, is his attempt to reduce the fleeting phenomena of existence to lawfulness. This is as true of Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy as it is of Galilean-Newtonian physics, despite their very different conceptions of lawfulness. Both schools seek to discover the riddle of existence in some scientific order or pattern of the world. This is the aim of Cognitive Man.

However refined the quest of Cognitive Man, what unites him with his secular counterparts, Volitional and Sensual Man, is that, like them, he does not pursue the object of his desire to glorify God.  The reason is quite simple: for Cognitive Man such a God does not exist. Aristotle, like Spinoza, is a “pantheist.” His Prime Mover is an extrapolation from the principle of motion (Physics 251b17-25, 266a5).  As for Plato, his Demiurge is not a creator but an artificer that imposes order on a preexisting chaos (Timaeus 30a, 52d-55, 69b). One thing is clear: both philosophers rejected the idea of a personal God. Otherwise piety would be a virtue.

To be sure, the human psyche is not so easily compartmentalized. Cognitive Man may shade into Volitional Man. Thus Aristotle taught Alexander the Great political science; and politics. However, for Aristotle politics is but the application of philosophy to action. Let us see how Aristotle deals with this issue.

When Aristotle inherited the concept of nature from his teacher Plato, that concept had already been demythologized and transformed into the impersonal and immutable standard of how man should live. Aristotle enriched and systematized the idea by developing an organic and teleological theory of nature. Such was the success of this theory that it had no serious rivals in abodes of learning until the seventeenth century.  Vestiges of organicism may be found even in Kepler. However, not until the mechanistic theory of nature fathered by Galileo and Newton was organic concept of nature laid to rest.

What made the organic (and teleological) theory of nature so alluring and enduring is that it appealed to common sense.  Observe the growth of a tree from its seed and it will seem that the processes of nature are inwardly directed toward an end or telos. The end is that toward which a living thing strives in order to reach its completion. So it is with man.  Neither force imposed from without, nor chance, so much as an immanent impulse prompts man to form associations that can fulfill his potentialities. The most self-sufficient and comprehensive association is the political community, the polis, which alone can complete or perfect man’s nature. Whatever contributes to that end is called “good.” Nature is thus the standard for judging what is good (or bad); there is no other.

Could there be a more impersonal yet intimate and benign substitute for the Olympian gods?  Must we not marvel at Aristotle’s genius?  By creating a new foundation for morality, Aristotle became one of the greatest “legislators” of mankind.

This organic and teleological conception of man and nature was shattered by Galileo and Newton, the founders of modern science. Their mechanistic conception of nature left nature devoid any moral compass. Neither the quantum theory of Plank nor Einstein’s general theory of relativity provides a scintilla of light on how man should live.

When Nietzsche announced that “God is dead,” he was also announcing, wittingly or otherwise, the death of man. Modern man had become “human-all-too-human.” Thus was born Nietzsche’s desperate idea of the ubermensch. He asked “whither are we going?” and we are living today without an answer. This will compel us to return to Israel.

Jan 16 2016

What Voting Meant to James Wilson one of six men who signed both ther Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States


Post by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

James Wilson of Pennsylvania was one of six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.  His contribution to the deliberations of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 was second only to that of James Madison.  He was also the principal draftsman of Pennsylvania’s own constitution of 1790.

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Mr. Wilson was one of the original Justices of the Supreme Court as well as one of the first professors of law.  He was widely regarded as the profoundest legal scholar of his generation.

More than other framers of the American Constitution, Wilson was a fervent advocate of democracy.  His conception of democracy, however, or at least of what it means to vote in elections, differs significantly from that of the present age.

Let me first collate a few passages from his law lectures and speeches:

“In a free country, every citizen forms a part of the sovereign power: he possesses a vote, or takes a still more active part in the business of the commonwealth.  The right and duty of giving that vote, the right and duty of taking that share, are necessarily attended with the duty of making that business the object of his study and inquiry….

At every election, a number of important appointments must be made.  To do this is, indeed, the business of a day.  But it ought to be the business of much more than a day to be prepared for doing it well.  When a citizen elects to office … he performs an act of the first political consequence.  He should be employed, on every convenient occasion, in making researches after the proper persons for filling the different departments of power; in discussing, with his neighbours and fellow citizens, the qualities that should be possessed by those who fill the several offices; and in acquiring information, with the spirit of manly candour, concerning the manners, and history, and characters of those who are likely to be candidates for the public choice.  A habit of conversing and reflecting on these subjects, and of governing his actions by the result of his deliberations, will form, in the mind of the citizen, a uniform, a strong, and a lively sensibility to the interests of his country.  The same cause will produce a warm and enlightened attachment [or representational bond] to those [representatives], who are best fitted and best disposed to support and advance those interests.”

Wilson goes on to suggest the habit of citizens to candidly acquire information concerning the manners, history, and characters of candidates for public office, tends to raise the level of those elected and to exert a salutary influence on their official conduct if only because they want to be worthy of the honor accorded them by their fellow citizens (to say nothing of their desire to be re-elected).

We see that for Wilson, voting—electing someone to public office, a person whose conduct can affect the welfare of the commonwealth—is a moral act requiring rational inquiry and candid judgment. The right to vote in an election involves the duty of citizens to inquire into the character and experience of the candidates and to make a candid judgment as to which candidate is best qualified to serve the interests of the community.

The preceding remarks should be juxtaposed with what American citizens know today about the manners, history, and characters of the candidates competing for the office of the president of the United States.  Do the media, including Internet, augment or distort the citizen’s knowledge of these candidates and of their public philosophy?   Are controversial issues discussed in a candid and serious manner?  Are citizens confronted by clear, alternative public policies?  Are the winning candidates, once in office, held accountable for the positions they take during election campaigns?  Do contemporary democratic elections foster seriousness, truth, and moral clarity?  Does the enormous amount of money spent on elections affect the quality of men and women who enter politics?

Do you regard the current system of “presidential” debates an improvement over previous systems of obtaining presidential candidates?

Do you have any alternatives in mind?

Dec 28 2015

The Republican Party, the RNC, Created Trump!


Post By Jeff Longo

In a recent column, Washington Post opinion writer George Will warns, if Donald Trump wins the presidential nomination prepare for the end of the Republican Party as we know it. For many of us that transformation had already begun long before Mr. Trump took the stage. Let’s be clear, Donald Trump’s political success is the product of a Republican establishment that has abandoned the values that got them elected. They have no one to blame but themselves.

With majorities in both houses they have failed to control spending while fully funding Obamacare, Planned Parenthood and the Syrian Refugee Program. There have been no meaningful steps taken to secure our border and they have failed to stop a lawless president who has done great damage to our country.

Democrats have allowed their party to be hijacked by the corrupt left who have driven wedges between the American people while creating a culture of victimization. The Republican establishment is doing much the same within their own party. They have lost the trust of many from their conservative base and they can no longer take my vote for granted.

 

 

 

 

Dec 27 2015

Saving America: By Non-violent Revolution


Post By Paul Eidelberg

The members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff know, as do millions of Americans, that their country is engaged in a world war — not with ISIS (or ISIL) but with the driving force of ISIS — Islam, Islam itself and without adjectives, and further which has declared war on us; is without doubt the Mortal enemy of our Civilization.

It is therefore the solemn duty (under their oath of office) of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to undertake a course of action that will terminate the Obama-led administration in its ENTIRETY; or, failing this, for the Joint Chiefs to resign en mass under appropriate protest and positive recommendations to the American public.

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This mass resignation of the Joint Chiefs will galvanize the American people and surely governors of many states to form a caretaker government until new national elections can be held. Meanwhile the National Guard will maintain law and order by all necessary and proper means.

Mr. Obama and his minions, under safe security, will be required in total to resign from office. Appropriate leaders of the majority party of the House of Representatives will step forward, and, with the support of various Senators, will assure the American people that a new democratic government will be formed after the needed caretaker government prepares appropriate grounds for the new government.

A moratorium on legal penalties may be in order, but this should not delay the removal of the entire corrupted Obama Government. Further, the Supreme Court, in the absence of the Executive, should not interfere.

During this period, the American Declaration of Independence should be our guide. Highly respected former Congressmen and women should do what is necessary to secure a peaceful transformation of regimes. But the main objective must be emphasized.

America needs a new and competent and very American commander-in-chief to save this country from her mortal enemy, Islam.

Dec 13 2015

To Bring Down Barak Obama


Post By Paul Eidelberg

1. Publicize in all media Senator Mark Rubio’s denunciation of Obama.

2. Display Obama’s pro-Muslim and anti-American statements and foreign policies.

3. Publicize Obama’s pro-Muslim appointments to his administration.

4. Publicize Obama’s link to the “G-d damn America” pastor Jeremiah Wright.

5. Publicize criticism of Obama by former Black congressmen Lt. Col. Allen West.

Before, a brief statement about Allen West is in order.

What should be America’s attitude toward Islam? Former Congressmen Lt. Col. Allen West, a black American learned in history and in the principles of warfare, recommends Ronald Reagan’s approach: “We win, you lose.”
Colonel West, who fought in Iraq, has been the most forthright critic of Islam, and he displays solid knowledge of Islamic military history and scriptures. He warns us that today’s Islamic leaders, no less than yesterday’s, are committed to the destruction of our Judeo-Christian civilization.

His candid assessment of Islam been enunciated by Winston Churchill as well as by eminent theologians and scholars in one country after another. Indeed, learned Muslims have renounced Islam for its savagery. Most appalling, however, are the number of Western pundits and politicians who are afraid to expose this ticking bomb. They are afraid to highlight what drives Islam’s global ambitions, namely, its theology.

Few scholars, unlike Col. West, are bold enough to describe this theology as a perverted form of monotheism. But what else is to be said of a theology that denies free will and the inviolable dignity of the individual? What else is to be said of a theology who’s most admired teachers and practitioners from Muhammad to Bin Laden acclaim the primacy of power as opposed to the primacy reason, theology, moreover that treats women as chattel and celebrates death?

What should be America’s attitude toward Islam? Former Congressmen, Lt. Col. Allen West, recommends Ronald Reagan’s approach toward the Soviet USSR—“We win, you lose.”

Lt. Co. West, who fought in Iraq, has been the most forthright critic of Islam, and he displays solid knowledge of Islamic military history and scriptures. He warns us that today’s Islamic leaders, no less than yesterday’s, are committed to the destruction of our Judeo-Christian civilization.

His candid assessment of Islam has been enunciated by Winston Churchill, as well as by eminent theologians and scholars in one country after another. Indeed, learned Muslims have renounced Islam for its savagery. Most appalling, however, are the number of Western pundits and politicians who are afraid to expose this ticking bomb. They are afraid to highlight what drives Islam’s global ambitions, namely, its theology.

Few scholars are bold enough to describe this theology as a perverted form of monotheism. But what else is to be said of a theology that denies free will and the inviolable dignity of the individual; a theology who’s most admired teachers and practitioners from Muhammad to Bin Laden acclaim the primacy of power as opposed to the primacy reason; a theology that exalts conquest and scorns justice, a theology that treats women as chattel; a theology that celebrates death, not life.

Therefore, in continuation of the five points I mentioned above, add the following:

6. Publicize the proposed impeachment of Obama by Lt. Col. West and former Congresswoman Michele Beckmann.

7. Publish one-page leaflets showing five or more violations of the law and/or abuses of executive power by Obama.

8. Organize group protest demonstrations in Washington DC led by prominent black Americans such as Thomas Sowell, who served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and University of California, Los Angeles.

9. For obvious reasons, these demonstrations should be led primarily, but not exclusively, by prominent black Americas. This is NOT a racial issue. At stake is the survival of America. To save America, we must demand the resignation of our dangerously inept Chief Executive, Barack Obama, who has been called, to put it mildly, a “post-American” President

Dec 12 2015

The greatest threat to America is the cockamamie Muslim in the White House, Barak Hussein Obama.


Post by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

If an American presidential candidate were to mention this, he’d win by a landslide.

One or two of these presidential candidates emphasize the need for truth. But we need some UGLY truths, especially about ISLAM.

I’ve written lengthy articles about this  enemy, and I have cited the most respectable authors, including moderns like Alexis de Tocqueville and Winston Churchill, and ancients like Saint Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Catholic theologian; and I have even cited Syrian-born psychiatrist Wafa Sultan, who does not even regard Islam as a civilization! 

There are dozens of ex-Muslims that regard Islam as a scourge, and who forthrightly believe that the salvation of Muslims depends on their renunciation of Islam.

This being the case, why isn’t there a single American presidential candidate possessing enough moral courage to cite what even former Muslims have said about the viciousness of Islam? 

Are they silenced by the First Amendment’s right about Freedom of Speech, or about the Constitution’s guarantee about freedom of religion? 

Dec 12 2015

Another Way of Viewing the Conflict with Islam


Post By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Islam has never overcome its adolescent origin. G. E. Von Grunebaum put it differently. In Modern Islam (1962), he says, “Islam is inherently unprogressive.” “Islam,” he explains, “is not vitally interested in analytical self-understanding.” This describes an adolescent mentality.

More recently, Bernard Lewis, in “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (1990), portrays Islam’s overweening arrogance and utter contempt for Western civilization.

Ethnocentrism goes well with adolescence: Muslims are not interested in what a non-Muslim says about mankind and the universe.

Contrast Maimonides: “The identity of an author, be he a prophet or a gentile, is of no concern [to us]. We don’t rely on [the personal authority of] the individual who made [such and such] statements … but on the proofs he presented and the reasons he made known.”

Islam is not really interested in truth, which is why the Taliban says “reason stinks of corruption.” Islam knows only “Islamic” truths. Hence, Grunebaum and Lewis say that any intelligent Western statesman will understand why Muslims, steeped in the mentality of the Qur’an, lack the ability to moderate their demands in disputes with non-Muslims.

This Islamic mind-set makes nonsense of Barack Obama’s “outreach” policy to the Iranians, just as it makes nonsense of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “reciprocity” policy toward the Palestinians. Indeed, it’s idiotic to insist on reciprocity with Muslims whose sacred scriptures call for your destruction.

Obama’s mindless posture, however, stamps the liberal West, whose leaders live in a cringing state of denial of Islam’s childishly proud, 14-century record of punctuated murder and mayhem!

There is but one adult conclusion to be drawn from this 14-century reality:  Israel will not enjoy genuine peace with its neighbors so long as Muslim adults behave like adolescents! Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan said as much when she said Islam must be “transformed,” not merely “reformed.” Let’s draw some “politically incorrect” conclusions.

First, as advised by theologian George Weigel, we must stop speaking of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “three Abrahamic faiths” or the “three monotheisms.” These tropes, says Weigel, obscure rather than illuminate. They “ought to be retired.”

I would go further. Islam should no longer be dignified by the term “religion.” A basic aspect of religion is “altruism,” a concept wholly foreign to Islam. Altruism is intrinsically alien to Islam since its distorted theology rejects the Jewish concept of man’s creation in the image of God, the ultimate source of human dignity and of the moral unity of mankind.

Moreover, whereas the Genesis concept of imago Dei teaches Jews to emphasize the primacy of reason and persuasion in human affairs, the denial of this concept conditions Muslims to exalt the primacy of force and coercion. This syndrome can be traced to Islam’s bellicose, polytheistic origin, which prompts Muslims to behave like rival gangs of teenagers,

It follows from the preceding, and as indicated by Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist living in Los Angeles, Islam can’t be reformed by moral suasion from within. She rightly says Islam must be “transformed,” hence transformed from without. But to transform Islam from without, certain measures must be taken to desacralize what Muslims worship, above all the Qur’an, which virtually no one thinks of doing, even though the Qur’an is the foundation of every Islamic regime, from Iran to the Palestinian Authority.

Focus, however, on what the Qu’ran high lights, namely, the “enemy,” the “infidel.” We are not going to expunge this word from the Qur’an by “changing hearts and minds” via a “Voice of America.” As “infidels,” we are Islam’s enemy, which means that Islam is our enemy.

So let’s be grown up about this enemy and cease behaving like adolescents, mindless of Islam’s history of genocide, which exceeds that of the Nazis. We have an unprecedented and implacable enemy.

We are not wide-eyed teenagers or sentimental old ladies. Nor are we acanemics that exaggerate the influence of ideas on behavior. We have a deadly enemy. Mankind has always thought of the enemy as one you must kill or destroy first, otherwise, sooner or later, he will kill or destroy you.

But living in effete liberal democracies, we do not think this way.  “We are caught,” says Lou Harris, “in the midst of a conflict between those for whom the category of the enemy is essential to their way of organizing all human experience and those who have banished even the idea of the enemy.”

The conflict is between adolescents weaned on hatred and adolescents weaned on pap! We are being led by politicians who have made a career on pap.

Dec 11 2015

“Who Are We?”


Post by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

The title of this article is that of a book written by Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington, who traces his ancestry to the Samuel Huntington who signed the Declaration of Independence.

As I have written in Rescuing America from Nihilism, Huntington begins to define America’s national identity with these precise remarks:

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, Americans defined themselves in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture, particularly religion. The creedal component of American identity only began to emerge as relations with Britain deteriorated over issues of trade, taxes, military security, and the extent of Parliament’s power over the colonies…. As their debates over their relations with Britain intensified, Americans also began to invoke more universalistic Enlightenment self-evident truths concerning liberty, equality, and individual rights. Combined, these two sources generated the creedal definition of American identity embodied most notably in the Declaration of Independence, but also expressed in many other documents, sermons, pamphlets, writings, and speeches in the 1770s and 1780s.

This is what Huntington says in Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 47

Tragically, America has lost or has forsaken her national identity. No longer is America animated by what Abraham Lincoln called “our ancient faith.” That faith, Lincoln saw, was embodied in America’s primary foundational document, the Declaration of Independence. It was in this revolutionary document that America’s Founding Fathers proclaimed the cardinal principles of American Exceptionalism, principles that transcend space and time, principles derived from the universal and trans-historical truths of the Bible of Israel and encapsulated in the Declaration pivotal terms, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” the source of man’s inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

It should be obvious that President Barack Obama’s paramount objective is to destroy America’s unique national identity by flooding the country with Muslim migrants. No greater traitor has ever arisen in this country, whose would-be leaders, however, lack the courage and wisdom to articulate their convictions in such a way as to identify America’s greatest enemy.